A Queer Scene

by David Massengill

The celebrity ghost tour escorts us to the red-walled hotel room where Rudolph Valentino snuck his men. The guide adds a scandal slant to the words MALE LOVERS and reminds the audience that the debaucherous ’20s scorched as much as they roared. He then mentions evidence of the supernatural — blinds dropping to block sight of the neon country outside, a comforter flying from bed to floor sometime after midnight. The guide never suggests why the dead keep trying to warm this chamber, or what they might utter to one another. Nobody in the audience asks because we're eager to return to the bus. The next spectacle is the telephone pole where Monty Clift smashed his car.